Now on YouTube: you can shop products featured in videos!

Yesterday, Mashableand Googleannounced a new feature of YouTube brand channels – “shoppable” gadgets that allow you to view product information and even shop for products featured in videos. The first channel to get this treatment is TRESemmé, a brand of Unilever hair care products.

The YouTube brand page is the first of its kind, and has the potential to impact how shoppers interact with YouTube content in a much broader spectrum of applications. The Google Retail Blog says:

To shorten the path to purchase and translate video views to sales, today we’re introducing a new channel gadget on YouTube that will enable consumer goods brands to connect consumers directly with retailers throughout the entire YouTube experience. This new channel gadget will enable shoppers to seamlessly move from browsing how-to videos and featured products to finding which retailers carry them, check availability, compare prices and make a purchase, all with fewer clicks than today.

The TRESemmé channel already featured a ton of helpful how-to videos, which seem to be a perfect fit for distributing product information to consumers. Viewers can search for videos or select a filter to view different types of hairstyles. Each video features a TRESemmé stylist showing how to create the look and what products to use to achieve the style.

When you are on the video page, you can see which products are featured in a sidebar on the right:

You have a ton of options on the page – view related videos, read through the how-to steps, learn more about products, buy products now, share on social media, launch a web cam viewer so you can style along (only on supported browsers), and even view and add product reviews. I find the reviews to be incredibly helpful, because I have “problem hair” and I always want to know how certain products work on people with similar challenges.

What do you think of the new TRESemmé gadget? Would you like to see other brand channels with this type of feature?

Disclosure: The company who produced this technology, Gloto, is my regular day job. I don’t know if I’m required to tell you that, but figured it couldn’t hurt 🙂 Side note – it was awesome working on this project. I’ve learned how to do twists and buns so far. Still working on braids.